


Fixed Orbit

by Damkianna



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Extra Treat, M/M, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Trick or Treat: Treat, Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 03:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12401907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Five things that didn't happen to Three and Anders—and one that still could.





	Fixed Orbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mimm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimm/gifts).



> You mentioned Three/Anders, what-ifs, forced intimacy, going undercover ... and _didn't_ mention hating five-things fics! So here's hoping you like this one, Mimm. :D
> 
> I know your letter said you'd be all caught up by story reveals, but just in case you've been low on time—the "plus one" is set post-S3 finale, so if you haven't gotten there ... it probably won't make sense.
> 
> ♥ Thank you for all your excellent requests and likes, and I hope you've had a wonderful ToT!

 

 

**1\. leaving together.**

"This is the Galactic Authority. Come forward and identify yourselves."

Three presses himself back a little further against the crate behind him and stares pointedly at Anders. All up to him, now.

Anders stares back, steady and unblinking. And then he lifts his hands defensively and calls out, "Lieutenant John Anders, Galactic Authority, Serious Crimes Division."

He gives them the whole spiel, and they seem to believe him. Three's almost started to relax, thinking he's home free; and then one of them asks, "Are you alone?"

And Anders, the bastard, looks at them calmly and says, "I have a prisoner with me. Marcus Boone. He surrendered peacefully, and he isn't going to cause any trouble." He turns and raises an eyebrow at Three.

"You son of a bitch," Three breathes, and then the GA goons swarm around the corner of the shelves and come at him.

 

He doesn't cause any trouble, because what's it going to help? There's like a dozen of them, and he clearly can't count on fucking Anders to back him up.

Fucker.

Anders cuffs him personally, once one of the other guys gives him a set of restraints. Three tries to ignore the jump of his pulse when Anders's hands wrap around his wrists, when Anders tugs them behind him and pins them together; and then Anders leans in against his shoulder, solid presence at his back, and fuck, this is really not the moment to be thinking about how it had felt to lie there pressing Anders into the floor—

"Listen," Anders mutters in his ear, "I'm sorry. I thought about it, but I couldn't be sure they wouldn't sweep the place for more drones, or run a heat scan or something. If they caught me out, we'd both be screwed—"

"And you figured you'd rather it was just me," Three snaps. "Sure, I get you. Asshole."

"Hey," Anders says, a little more sharply, and jerks at the restraints hard enough to make Three's breath catch. "I got you. Okay? I'd have died down here if it weren't for you, and I know that. You might be a shithead, but I'm not going to hang you out to dry." He gives the other guys a nod, and then starts walking Three back toward the front of the facility. "You just have to give me some time. All right?"

"Whatever," Three sneers.

"I don't know what the hell Kal sees in you people," Anders murmurs, shaking his head; but he guides Three into the GA shuttle carefully, grip gentle, with a hand on Three's temple so he can't knock it into the corner of the rear bay door.

 

 

 

**2\. getting to know each other.**

Prison doesn't suck any less the second time around.

And Three's not counting on a rescue. Maybe Anders really had had the best of intentions—maybe. But he's off in his GA office somewhere with a load of casework to get through, and Three's here. Out of sight, out of mind. Wouldn't exactly be a shock if he just didn't get around to following up.

Three's survival strategy is pretty simple: try not to get noticed. He's new, there's nobody on his side; yeah, he makes an easy target, but the flip side of that is targeting him doesn't do anybody any good, doesn't send a message or make a statement. Unless the statement is "I'm kind of bored today."

So when there's a buzz from the security system and then a handful of guards come in, everybody's eyes on them, Three curses a little under his breath when they head toward him. Whatever it is they want with him, they're making him noticeable. Not good.

"You Boone?" one of them says.

Three considers the potential consequences of replying with _Who's asking?_ On the one hand, getting them to hit him might keep anybody from assuming he's out to rat on them, or make himself the warden's favorite, or whatever else. On the other hand—he's not real eager to get himself punched today.

"That's me," he says instead, and they grab him, tie him, and frogmarch him out.

 

He gets taken a lot further than he's expecting, all the way up to some shiny white hallway. Kind of makes stuff echo; at first Three can only sort of pick out the sound of voices, but as the guards bring him closer he gets words. "—sure it's Boone you want? He's hardly the only option."

"Yes," says none other than John fucking Anders, blandly, and then Three's hauled through the doorway and Anders turns his head, and for a second their eyes lock.

Bastard doesn't even blink.

"He's got a history with this particular gang," Anders adds, to the warden, without looking away. "We need to know anything he's willing to tell us before we can set this operation in motion."

The warden shrugs. "All right," she says. "No skin off my nose. Your authorization's been logged and validated, and filed alongside the original request. You can take him whenever you like."

Anders turns to her—finally—and nods. "Thank you for your cooperation," he says, cool, and then he grabs Three by the elbow and they walk out.

 

There are cameras all up and down that shiny white hallway, and in the docking bay, and even in the airlock. Three grinds his teeth and waits until they're finally in Anders's gleaming GA shuttle with the hatch closed securely behind them.

And then he turns and swings his elbow out of Anders's grip and straight into his solar plexus.

Anders folds over the blow with a satisfying wheeze. And then comes up with a fist out; and Three's hands are still chained behind his back.

"Aw, shit," he has time to say, and then sparks crackle across his vision, a blaze of pain whiting out half his jaw, and he reels backward—and then is caught, by one of Anders's big steady hands on his shoulder.

"What the _hell_ ," Anders huffs, when he's got the breath for it. "Goddamn, Boone, you suck at making friends."

"An' who 'aid I wanted to _'e_ friends," Three spits, testing with his tongue to try to guess whether any of his teeth are a writeoff. Fucking ow.

"Oh, yeah? You've got so many options you're ready to throw this one away?" Anders raises an eyebrow. "Because I have to tell you, I'm not seeing them from where I'm standing."

Three glares at him and decides petty silence is the better part of valor.

"That's what I thought," Anders mutters. He shakes his head and then gestures to the co-pilot's seat, settling into the pilot's chair himself. "And before you get any funny ideas, that console's deactivated."

"Not much good to me anyway, with the cuffs," Three says, jabbing his fingers out to the side and then wiggling them pointedly.

Anders looks at him flatly, and then turns to his own console. "Can't take them off until we've cleared the prison's flight zone," he says. "Standard procedure."

"Oh, well, if it's _procedure_ ," Three says, with exactly as much reverence as that idea deserves.

"Procedure also allows for gags to be applied to particularly uncooperative prisoners," Anders observes blandly, easing the shuttle away from the airlock.

Three allows a beat of silence, to demonstrate that he's capable of it, before he says, "Noted." And then he jiggles his knee a couple times, wets his lips, taps his foot against the floor. "So what's this case you've got, anyway? Did you make something up to get me out of there, or—"

"No, of course not!" Anders says. "I'm a _cop_ , Boone, I don't know how to falsify GA case records, and if I did, I wouldn't do it."

"Right, sure," Three says quickly, "of course, you're a real upstanding guy."

"No wonder you keep getting arrested," Anders murmurs; and then he shifts a little in his seat and clears his throat. "No, I—I found an old one. Still open, intersected with your record in enough places that I could—requisition you, and not raise too many eyebrows."

"Oh," Three says, and thinks about it: that caseload Anders must already have, and exactly how far he had to dig to come up with something Marcus Boone had a hand in to pile on top, and how much paperwork it probably took to get the whole process moving. "Oh. Uh—thanks."

"Yeah," Anders says, without looking up.

Three watches him for a second. "Three," he says.

And that does make Anders look up. "What?"

"Three," Three repeats. "Stop calling me Boone. Only people who want to kill me call me that."

Anders raises an eyebrow. "Okay, _Boone_ ," he says, pointedly deliberate, but Three's almost sure he doesn't mean it.

(Almost. Like, 80 percent, at least.)

 

 

 

**3\. fighting crime.**

Three figures all that needs to happen is he needs like ten minutes with Anders—outside GA headquarters, obviously, off somewhere where nobody's looking—and then he can "overpower" Anders and call it a day.

"No wonder you keep getting arrested," Anders says nonsensically, for like the fifth time so far, staring at Three. "You can't plan anything more complicated than making lemonade, can you?"

" _Hey_ ," Three says, outraged.

Anders seems unmoved. "You try to pull that shit anywhere near here, they'll track you down and throw you back in prison again, and this time I won't get you out." He shakes his head, and mutters, "Already regretting doing it this time."

"Well, if that's not the plan, then what is it?"

"Wait," Anders says placidly, like he knows exactly how irritating that is. "Wait and do what I tell you. Whenever we're using official transportation, or on official business, they'll be tracking me and monitoring you. If we get far enough with this case, though, we can come up with a good reason to go off the grid—I can go undercover, maybe, and take you along to vouch for me. I don't know, we'll see what comes up."

Doesn't sound unreasonable, Three has to admit; but he's not in his most charitable mood just this second. "So in other words," he says aloud, "you don't have one."

"I didn't say that," Anders says. "I have lots of plans. For example, I'm planning to leave those cuffs on you forever if you don't make at least a half-assed effort to go along with me on this."

"Aw, c'mon—"

"Look," Anders says, suddenly sharp.

Three blinks and obediently looks at him.

"I get it, all right? For you, this is just another one of the series of ridiculous bullshit situations you've been falling into and out of and back into for your entire life. But for me—this is my career on the line, here. Do you understand that? This is everything I care about, everything I've worked for, and I might lose all of it just because I decided to try to help _you_."

"Okay, okay," Three says quickly. "All right, I get the picture. Wait. Do what you tell me. Don't screw up. A rakishly handsome wanted criminal and a goody-two-shoes cop with a stick up his ass: together we'll fight crime."

"Jesus Christ," Anders says, muffled, face in his hands. "I'm going to die alone in a holding cell."

"What," Three says, "you don't think they'll put me in there with you?"

"... Jesus Christ, I _hope_ I die alone in a holding cell—"

"Hey!"

 

So Anders flies them the rest of the way to the GA—to the auxiliary GA station he's posted at, to be specific—and gets Three bagged and tagged and catalogued, or at least that's what it feels like. The cuffs do come off, but only after they've given Three an overly thorough exam and then injected him with some kind of tracking nanochip. Bonus: it'll zap him if he goes more than ten meters away from Anders.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

The lady with the injector gives him a look that says she really is not kidding him.

"You're a flight risk, Boone," Anders says from the chair by the door, before muffling a half-formed yawn with the back of one hand. He's had to be around for everything, since he's taking "official responsibility" for Three or whatever, and apparently systematically making Three uncomfortable with medical implements isn't as riveting as Anders might've hoped. "And there's no way to turn it off on my end, in case you were wondering. You kill me and you'll just be stuck dragging my dead body around."

"Goddamn, that's grim," Three mutters.

Anders offers him a thin, unamused smile. "That's the GA," he says. "Practical to the end."

He'd have tested it, just to be sure they aren't bluffing, except he doesn't have to—they test it for him, to make sure it's working. Hurts like a son of a bitch.

"Ah, fuck," he manages after a second, once it's stopped; and then Anders is there, hands steady and careful on his back, his shoulders.

"Sorry about that," Anders murmurs, and when Three cracks an eye to check, he's grimacing, corner of his mouth pulled down.

"I'll live," Three says, and Anders snorts and shakes his head and stops looking so weird.

"Worst news I've had all day," he says, and he _definitely_ doesn't mean it that time, Three thinks.

 

Hanging out with a GA officer isn't as action-packed as Three might have expected. Once his fingers have stopped twitching with leftover current, Anders sits him down in front of a screen and makes him go through a truly epic batch of files—Marcus Boone's past associates.

"You need to know them," Anders says, when Three makes a face at him. "If this is going to fly, you have to be able to recognize everybody Marcus Boone should recognize, and you need to know everything about them that Marcus Boone would know. We're only going to get one shot at this, and if you fuck it up, we're both screwed."

So Three sits there and looks at them and tries not to let his eyes glaze over too much. It's even sort of interesting, getting a look at the bigger picture of Marcus Boone—obviously the GA doesn't exactly have the full story, but even their dry official files are a lot more thorough than the stuff Three's been able to dig up by himself.

Sort of interesting, and also sort of super fucking creepy. There are pictures, sometimes, or little loops of video data, Marcus Boone making deals with people and shaking their hands, or punching them, or shooting them. Nobody Three knows, nowhere he's ever been—just some guy with his face, doing shit he'd never do.

Lieutenant John Anders, Galactic Authority, Serious Crimes Division, has his own office. Looks like it could fit two, Three thinks, except the half Three's sitting in, the computer station where Anders has set him up, is scrupulously bare, unused—and then he remembers. Kal Varrik. Anders had a partner, once.

And now he's got Three, so, you know. Way to trade up.

It's impossible to tell what time it is; the station's lights don't seem to be set to any particular day/night cycle. Which Three supposes makes sense, given that the GA has to be active round the clock—has to be someone on shift no matter the hour in any particular planet's local time. There's still something sort of inhuman about it, though.

And Three's no GA officer, which is presumably why he wakes up with his face stuck to the desk, way more hours later than can possibly be good for him. His back was never supposed to make this shape, let alone hold it while he slept.

And when he pries himself up, groaning, and turns to twist the kinks out, Anders is asleep in his own chair.

Then again, if he'd gone more than ten meters, Three'd know about it.

"Hey," Three says loudly, and Anders jerks and snorts a little and then blinks himself awake.

"What—oh," he says, and then, "Sorry," reaching up to scrub at his eyes. "Sorry."

"Just figured it was about time I asked you something," Three says. "Do you live here or what?"

He's expecting Anders to roll his eyes, maybe snap back something about how he's got more of a home than Three's garbage scow full of criminals. But instead Anders just rubs at his face a little longer and then looks away.

"Apartment," he says at last, reluctantly. "GA-assigned. It's—not much."

So maybe he does sleep in that chair more often than not. And more often than not, there's probably nobody trapped within ten meters or less to notice, either.

Which is so fucking sad Three can't even bring himself to make fun of it.

"Well," he says instead, "as long as it's got some flat surfaces, I can pretty much guarantee you I'll prefer it to this chair. Not that I've got much choice in the matter," he adds a little flatly, because—hell, all Anders has to do is not get up, and Three's going to be sleeping on the floor in here, less than ten meters away.

But Anders looks up and his face is suddenly serious, drawn and a little pale. "No," he says instantly. "Look, Boone—Three. You're an asshole and I don't like you. But you're my responsibility, and I take that seriously. Anywhere you need to go—within reason—and we'll go. Just tell me."

Three eyes him. "Yeah? Because it occurs to me that a cop who'd put a chip like this in somebody could get away with a lot without leaving any marks—"

Anders's mouth goes flat. "I'm not that kind of cop," he says softly. "I make goddamn sure I'm not that kind of cop."

Which, in Three's experience, cops who are that kind of cop don't waste a lot of time saying they're not, because they don't think it's important to not be that kind of cop in the first place. "Okay," he says, and stretches until his spine cracks. "Well, in that case: yeah, I want a fucking bed."

"Okay," Anders says quietly, and stands up.

 

Anders wasn't kidding: his apartment's almost as bare as Kal Varrik's side of the office, clean and impersonal and a little too shiny for comfort. But it's got a bed _and_ a couch, and Three's standards were never that high anyhow.

"So you don't do a lot of entertaining," he says, splaying himself out on the couch with a sigh.

"No," Anders agrees, dry. "We don't have to take the assigned apartments if we don't want to. But I—" He looks away, shrugs one shoulder a little awkwardly. "I don't know. Seemed convenient. Never had a reason to look for anything else."

"Hey, no complaints here," Three says.

He'd never had much of a reason to think about it, but—but it really is a good gig, on the _Raza_. Space all his own, filled with his stuff; and he doesn't eat alone unless he wants to, doesn't drink alone, doesn't work alone. Because he's not alone.

Makes him feel almost sad, thinking about Anders like that after Six left. Sad, and sorry, and like—like he wants to do something about it. Guy might be a pompous jackass who never met a rule he didn't like, but damn.

Three thinks about what Anders would probably do if Three got up and tried to hug him, and snorts loud enough to make Anders give him a funny look.

(He'd be happier, though, on the _Raza_. Wouldn't he? Three bets he would.

Well, except for all the law-breaking. But they try to do that less these days. On the edge of sleep, watching Anders move around his tiny apartment through half-closed eyes, Three thinks: yeah. He'd be happier, on the _Raza_. He just doesn't know it. Trapped, Three thinks. Just like Marcus Boone had been. Alone. Anders shouldn't have to be alone, Three decides blurrily; and then, all at once, he's asleep.)

 

 

 

**4\. turning the tables.**

The chip doesn't get taken out of Three before they go undercover.

"Wait, let me guess," he says. "Procedure."

Anders gives him a flat look. "I'm sorry, you expect me to pitch a fit about it? You really think my superiors are going to believe me if I tell them, 'yeah, I'd love to be sent out into the field with no backup and Marcus Boone, and also if the only thing keeping him from leaving me dead in a ditch somewhere could be deactivated first, that would be great.'"

"When you say it like that, I feel like you're not really invested in selling this narrative," Three tells him.

"Gee, I wonder why," Anders murmurs, and hustles him off toward the shuttle bay.

 

The case Anders picked out does fit the bill pretty well. It'll take them way off to the ass end of nowhere, so Marcus Boone can get killed or whatever without anybody being surprised, and then Three can go on his merry way.

Of course, Anders insists they have to actually fight some crime, too. But that's a small price to pay, considering Three could easily have just stayed stuck in prison this whole time. So they'll get what Anders needs, and _then_ Marcus Boone will meet his untimely end, and then they'll both be happy. Win-win.

All Marcus Boone's past acquaintances seem to favor equally crappy planets—presumably because no one gives a shit about people doing crime if they do it on crappy planets—and this gang's no exception. Once they've come down through the upper atmosphere, it's all clouds, and they dive through into impressively dreary, endless rain.

The story is that Anders had a deal go south and got stuck with a bunch of cargo he can't unload, and he got in touch with Boone hoping Boone would have some contacts who might be interested. GA's apparently been after these guys for long enough that they're willing to let Anders go out on a limb to get something real on them.

Which is fair, because Three and Anders manage to make contact, and these fuckers are _assholes_.

Not exceptionally so, at first. They've got the same vague mean look to them as a lot of people who make a living doing bad shit to other people who don't deserve it—the same look as the alternate Portia and Boone, kind of. Three smiles at them thinly and doesn't let any of them get behind him, and reminds himself he only has to stick this out long enough for Anders to catch them out.

He probably should have known something was up the second they took Anders into the back, the second they smiled at Marcus Boone and offered him a drink. But it made sense that they'd want to hammer out the details of the deal with Anders, and it was only one room away. Less than ten meters, after all.

Still—he probably should have known.

 

As it is, he's not sure what's going on when they take him back there, clapping him on the shoulder and laughing—not until he sees the blood all over Anders's face.

"Hey! What the hell?"

The main guy—Durren, Darren, something like that—takes a second to hit Anders one more time, and then glances up. "What?"

"What the hell are you doing?" Three asks, cool and even, and settles a hand under his coat. Anders gave him a gun—not GA-standard, something they'd seized and brought in. Not one of his beauties, but it'll do.

"Oh, come on, Boone," says Darren, with a laugh. "What, you thought we forgot how this works? We've got a deal, you and me. Marcus Boone doesn't do people _favors_. Anybody you bring here, and you tell me you're doing them a kindness—that's just so we can get them in the back room. Then you take their cargo."

"Oh," Three says. "Yeah. Right."

Shit. Why did Marcus Boone have to be such an asshole?

Anders spits a little blood on the floor, and then twists around just far enough to squint up at Three out of one rapidly-swelling eye. His face—or at least what Three can see of it, through the blood coming from his nose, his lip—isn't saying much of anything. He's just kneeling there in front of Darren, waiting. Waiting to see what Three will do.

And for half a second, Three's waiting, too. He likes to tell himself it was Marcus Boone who was the asshole, that now he's Three and he's different; but sometimes he still feels something he thinks of as Boone—a certain sour anger, a pettiness, an urge to see someone get hurt. And if there were any time for it to rise up, now's a good one. A GA officer on the floor, through no real fault of Three's, and Three is home free anyway. He could walk out, right now, and find his own way back to the _Raza_ , and none of this would have to be his problem.

But, looking at Anders, it turns out pulling his gun is the easiest thing in the world. Because sometimes it is easy like that—with Five, when Kierken had almost caught up to them; and at Dwarf Star, knowing they were taking him instead of Six to question, and only feeling glad about it.

Sometimes, being better than Marcus Boone is as easy as breathing.

"Thing is," Three says aloud, without looking away from Anders, "I actually sort of want this guy alive. And call me paranoid, but I don't figure you for the kind of guy who quits before closing time, Darren."

"Yeah, you got that right," Darren says with a mean little smirk, and then stops and frowns. "My name's Trent."

"Whatever," Three says, and levels the gun at him.

"Oh, come on, Boone," says apparently-Trent. "There's a dozen of us, and only one of you. Nobody in this room except the guy on the floor likes you better than they like me. You really going to shoot your way out of this?"

"Nope," Three says. "Yeah, okay, your pals here like you better than they like me. But do they like you better than they like a fiery death? That's the real question. Because this—" and he turns the gun a little, far enough for Trent to see the charge gauge on the grip, "—is not a projectile weapon, my friend. And if I overload all three power cells at once, I'm pretty sure it'll have approximately the same effect as a live grenade." He smiles at Trent, real wide and pleasant. "Yes, I will also die! No, you should not expect that to matter to me when you kind of just promised to kill me anyway. Have I covered everything?"

 

Trent didn't get far enough along to mess with Anders's legs or feet, so he's mostly okay to walk out of there; he does need an arm around his back to keep him going the right direction, but Three's done more for people he liked less.

And then it's a nice long slog through the mud on this crappy, crappy planet to get back to where they landed the shuttle. Awesome.

"Thanks," Anders slurs, after about fifteen minutes.

Three squints up through the trees and tries to decide whether he's seen that one before. "What?"

"Thanks," Anders says again. "Could've—could've left me there."

"Nah," Three says. "Chip's still on, remember? You think I forgot that thing you said about having to haul your dead body around? No way."

Anders huffs against Three's neck, barest shadow of a laugh, and Three absently tucks his head a little closer, little more securely in the hollow of Three's shoulder—and then catches himself at it and makes a face. What the hell is wrong with him?

"Y'know that gun's only got two power cells."

"Yeah?" Three says, steering them awkwardly around a tree.

"Yeah. Buffer, too. Can't overload."

"Well, how about that," Three mutters, craning his head right and then left. All these fucking trees look the same. Fuck.

"Goin' the wrong way."

"Oh, come on, you probably have at least three concussions—"

"That way," Anders says, hooking a thumb to one side without even looking.

Three looks that way, and then back at all the other totally identical trees in the totally featureless rain. "I guess it's as good as any," he mutters, and curls his hand in just a little tighter over Anders's waist.

Just to help him keep his balance. That's all.

Right.

 

 

 

**5\. finding out they've got something in common.**

Two sounds almost as glad to hear from Three as Three is to hear from her.

She's a little less thrilled about the whole "brought a beaten-up GA officer along" thing; but she's not about to tell Three he'd better leave the injured guy in the shuttle alone.

So Three lugs him to the infirmary and turns him over to the robot's tender mercies—and whatever else Three likes to say about her, he can admit she's good with the doctor stuff. And then, of course, Three can't leave. Ten meters. Obviously the android's first priority is stuff like the broken nose and the swelling in the brain; Three paces around and fiddles with stuff for a while, and then finally pops himself onto one of the free beds and falls asleep.

When he wakes up, the android's gone—and Anders looks a lot less like a badly-stuffed punching bag.

"Hey," Three says.

Anders cracks an eye open. "Hey."

Three leans a hip against the edge of his bed and studies him. "How're you feeling?"

"Oh, you know," Anders says, sitting up with only a little grimace. "Like somebody hit me in the face a lot."

"I do know," Three agrees, because he has totally been hit in the face a lot. Not fun.

Anders pauses for a beat, just looking at Three, and then glances away and says to the wall, "So, are you going to try to exchange me for something, or are you just going to kill me?"

"Uh, we wouldn't have wasted time getting you sorted out if we were going to kill you," Three says, chiding. "Keep up."

"Right," Anders says, bland. But there's still something wary in his face, something uncertain.

And he shouldn't look like that, Three thinks. Like he's more uncomfortable here than he was in his stupid shiny untouched apartment, in his half-office sharing space with the emptiness where the one person who gave a shit about him used to be.

Which isn't right, dammit. It isn't right.

"Not going anywhere until the android figures out how to shut that chip off, anyway," he says aloud, and he can't quite stop himself from sounding smug about it. It's just he can't help it—Anders isn't going anywhere, and Three can't find it in him to mind much.

"Right, right," Anders murmurs. "And _then_ you'll kill me."

"Nah," Three says, tone still light, except after a second he drops it. He stays where he is and waits for Anders to look at him again, and once Anders does it he says again, more carefully, "No."

And Anders stares at him for a long moment, almost apprehensive, before he swears and shakes his head, rubbing at the bridge of his newly-healed nose. "Why?" he says, sounding almost frustrated. "Why the hell not? Boone—"

"Three," Three says. "And we don't kill people anymore. Not if we can help it."

"The GA—"

"The GA can go fuck itself. Look," Three says, "you talked a good game, okay? Getting all up in my face like that about your career, your life, everything you care about. Except I _saw_. All right? I saw. You and your creepy office, your creepy apartment, and nobody going a single step further than _procedure_ to make sure Marcus Boone didn't gut you like a fish."

Anders shuts his mouth, pale, and doesn't answer.

"And you know the GA's not what it says it is. You told Six to be careful, to stop making a fuss. You keep your head down and you don't make waves, except when you do—except when you go half a galaxy out of your way just to help a guy out. Because you're not that kind of cop: not the kind they want you to be."

"It doesn't matter," Anders says, in the flat tired tone of somebody who's spent a hell of a lot of time telling themselves that. "It's my job. I just want to do my job."

"Except you _don't_ ," Three shouts at him. "That job sucks! You don't want to do that job! Come on, think about it. Think about it for five fucking seconds. What do you want?"

And Anders stares at him with dark eyes, and then, inescapably obviously, looks right at his mouth.

Three blinks, startled, feeling a flush of heat blaze up his throat, his cheeks. Okay, maybe he'd sort of thought—just, being in Anders's apartment and all, him soft-faced and asleep and right there; and in the woods, half-carrying him, all that broad warm strength relying on Three. The idea might—maybe, possibly, a little bit—have crossed his mind.

But he wasn't really expecting it to have crossed Anders's, too.

Anders grimaces and looks away, scrubbing a hand frustratedly across his mouth—and yeah, okay, he's probably also a little pissed at himself, for getting weird and moony about Three. Telling himself it was just because they were stuck in such close quarters, relying on each other, and then that probably just made it worse, because if he'd said anything with Three chipped up—

Not that kind of cop. Because he made goddamn sure not to be that kind of cop.

"Not the answer I was expecting," Three murmurs, "but I can roll with it," and he reaches out and skims a thumb across the prickle of stubble climbing Anders's cheek—

Anders knocks his hand away, flushed and frowning. "Don't—"

"Oh, come on! Please don't tell me you're about to accuse me of being _generous_. Not that I don't have all kinds of virtues, you understand, but that seriously isn't one of them—"

"Jesus Christ, you make me crazy," Anders growls out, surging up off the infirmary bed to hook an arm around Three's neck, other hand at Three's face to turn him at just the angle Anders wants him—fuck, that's hot, Three has time to think, and then he shuts his eyes and tries not to make too many embarrassing noises.

Plenty of time for that later, after all. Not a lot of places within ten meters of Three's bed, and he's sure as shit not making Anders sleep on the floor.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**but here in this universe, maybe it's really going to start with 1.**

Three's trying to decide what the odds are of Portia just shooting him in the head, and he's pretty sure they're not on his side. He's also watching Portia—stupidly, helplessly, like a mouse with a snake, because if she decides to end him he really doesn't have much in the way of options.

So he notices right away when she frowns a little.

"What?"

"Sensors are glitchy," she says, crisp—almost manages to sound like Two, he thinks, when she talks like that. "Must've been that explosion at the shipyard. Can't be sure, but I think I'm picking up something—" and then, almost at the same moment she says it, three GA cruisers drop out of FTL pretty much right in front of them.

Portia swears a blue streak, and Three wants to laugh at her bad luck except it's his bad luck, too: the shuttle doesn't have the weaponry to shoot its way out of this, and they probably won't get far trying to outrun the GA, either.

"Power down your engines and prepare to be boarded," the comm screen is blaring, in the same stern but vaguely bored voice all GA officers seem to have down to an art.

"Gee, I think we better do like they're telling us," Three murmurs, and Portia glares at him and curses again, under her breath.

 

They do in fact get boarded. Three and Portia both grudgingly lie down on the floor with their hands behind their heads, when the GA officers say to. They secure Portia first, which Three should probably find insulting; and then somebody kneels beside Three and hauls him up.

"What, you again?"

Three looks over and blinks. "Anders?"

"It's been too long," Anders says, flat, raising an eyebrow. "Got called out here over some kind of explosion. You know what that's about?"

"No!" Three says indignantly, and then shifts his weight. "Well—not really."

"Then I guess you don't have anything useful to tell us," Anders muses, reaching for the set of restraints at his waist—

"No, wait," Three says quickly, "just wait. My crew's back there, Anders, and I don't—I don't know what happened, but I can find out. They'll talk to me. They might even need your help. Six—Kal—"

Anders's mouth goes thin; but he looks at Three steadily for a long moment, and then kind of sighs through his nose. "Okay," he says at last, and then turns to one of the other GA goons behind him. "Secure her—very, very thoroughly. He's with me until I say otherwise."

"Yes, sir," the GA guy says with a little salute, before doing a crisp turn on his heel.

And then Anders looks back at Three, and makes a little gesture toward the rear of the shuttle. "After you."

"Wow, so chivalry's not dead."

"Yeah, sure," Anders allows. "Plus I'm not interested in getting shot in the back."

"Aw, c'mon," Three says, with a winning smile. "Don't you think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?"

"Not likely," Anders growls; but the corner of his mouth is totally twitching a little.

Besides, Three thinks, they're about to get a whole bunch of time to work on that.

 

 


End file.
